


Another Mistake

by SleepySpeedster



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Doubt, Gen, Introspection, Past, Personal Growth, Retrospective, Revelations, Self-Doubt, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepySpeedster/pseuds/SleepySpeedster
Summary: Douxie and his past self have a talk about disappointment, the doubt that surrounds them, and how Douxie looks and treats his past self.[Tag Clarification:  Merlin, Morgana, Arthur and Archie are just mentioned.]
Comments: 6
Kudos: 86





	Another Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short fic exploring an interaction between Douxie and his past self. This is definitely going to be expanded upon or rewritten at some point.
> 
>  **Notes:**  
>  I use "Douxie" to represent the Future/Present Douxie, and "Hisirdoux" for Past Douxie.
> 
> **** Comments, questions, and reactions are 100% welcomed and greatly appreciated! Tell me what you liked, questions you have, anything! Give this work a kudos if you liked it. Comments and kudos help me to create more work and figure out what I should work on.****

Hisirdoux peers through the doorway, the light from candles and flashes of blue magic lit the room in the dead of night. There leaned over one of the many magical tomes, reading intently, was himself. Nine hundred years older and vastly different.

“Could I-“ His voice came out weakly as his resolution earning him not even a glance from his future self. He cleared his throat, “Could I talk to you? Me?” Hisirdoux lets out a frustrated groan as he entered the study. Time travel was so frustrating to deal with. Whatever he was now would be him. He would eventually be the blue haired Hisirdoux in front of himself. He would be different than the person he was now, and yet as he stared at his future self, his hand clenched over his chest, he felt uneasy.

A part of him had felt this way some time now. He had been mopping floors for Merlin for years now. To be an apprentice of Merlin’s was an honor, but mopping floors and milking Slorrs was just mopping floors and milking Slorrs.

“I’m a bit busy.” Douxie replied; his tone more sharp than he had intended though his page turning sped up. It was only the stress of Jim’s life, his friends lives, the entire future, and then some on his shoulders as he fervently flipped through the pages of the tome. He hoped beyond hope that there was something about the corruption affecting Jim in one of these tomes. A hint! A clue! Anything that could help his friend. He had to find it. He had to look for a way to fix this mess he had helped make.

“But-” His past persisted.

He lets out a frustrated growl. But he couldn’t find a way amongst all this nattering filling his head. Especially from the moppet of his self who didn’t know enough to help. 

“I don’t have time to chat!” There’s a thud as his fist, tightly clenched collides with the table.

It was a mistake. Another in the long list of his life. 

“I-” Douxie began but the words were stuck. He knew his frustrations were misplaced, but what was done was done as he saw the expression upon his past self’s face.

There reflecting a face that he was never truly privy to, but knew well, was a hurt and stricken expression. Each pair of yellow eyes were wide with the same shock. However the past was filled with sadness at what he had become, and the future held disappointment at what he had done. 

“I didn’t mean it.” Douxie uttered out those too familiar words to his past self as he stepped toward him, his hand reaching out to himself. This was just like how Morgana, and Merlin, and King Arthur had always done. He was looking down on himself as well.

As his fingers grazed his shoulder, Hisirdoux stepped back, shaking his head at his future.

“Nine hundred years.” Hisirdoux lets out a frustrated sigh as he looks at his future conflicted, “Nine hundred years and I’ll become you. But is it worth it? Is any of this worth it?” He asks in a swell of anger and emotion. No one ever took him seriously. Not even himself apparently.

Douxie might not have remembered these pieces of his past occurring as such, but in his chest he remembered this feeling; these pangs of frustration and impatience at what felt as if there was no progress in his life, in his goal to be a true wizard, and the loneliness that crept in with all the doubt.

Hisirdoux may have been an apprentice wizard of King Arthur’s court, but between Morgana La Fey and Merlin Ambrosius he was nothing. A nobody who . Nine hundred years an apprentice by the looks of his future self. Nine hundred years practically alone from the bits and pieces he had scrounged up listening to everyone’s conversations when they hadn’t noticed him or forgotten that he was there. Hisirdoux wasn’t sure he could truly take that much time alone. While he knew he always had Archie by his side, his closest friend, the dragon didn’t always understand his more human problems as he put it. Even the years that they had spent together, conning their way day after day for a hot meal, hiding their magic to avoid death, and their misadventures that made up their lives it had been hard for him. 

“I know it’s frustrating, but—“ He hears his future self begin to say in an attempt to reason with him. To put their nine hundred years of experience into perspective. The lessons that Douxie had learned had been invaluable. Frustrating and demanding at times, but invaluable.

However, he would hear none of it. 

“But what?” He yelled out, magic flaring at his hands, “I end up like you someday?! Because from where I’m standing it doesn’t seem bloody well worth it!” At this moment Hisirdoux wasn’t sure he even wanted to end up like the future self he saw, “You’ve been an apprentice for nine hundred years. Alone for that long! Forced to wander the world because of Merlin!” His shoulders slump at his master’s name. “Merlin…” Hisirdoux utters as his gaze lowers. He was angry. He wanted to be angry. Damn it all! “It’s just not fair.” He says finding a seat within the study and sitting down. The anger he felt was an ember still fighting for life. He wanted to be angry at his master for leaving him to fend for so long on his own. For assuming that he would always be there at his beck and call; All the while doubting him.

“It’s just—” 

“Not fair.” Douxie says knowing how he had once felt. How he still felt deep down. Nine hundred years was too long for one to just wait and hope that all would go well and that his master would return. It was stupid and foolish, but that blind hope of his was one of he few things that he held on to in those days.

Hisirdoux’s hands trail up into his hair as if trying to hold himself together. It was all too much. The amounting stress of knowing of this possible future, knowing that this was what awaited him.

“It’s not fair at all.” He said with a sigh as he lowered himself into a nearby chair, “And you’re not fair either.” He stated to Douxie’s surprise, but before he could ask the answer was before him, “No one ever believes in me. That I could do something right. Not even you….But I guess that’s how we’ve always felt, huh?” Douxie was taken aback, but as Hisirdoux stared into his future’s self eyes it was hard to hide. All those past thoughts and feelings never truly leave you. All that disappointment from himself, and those placed there by others would always be seared into him and his memory. But hearing it from himself hurt more than he thought it ever would. 

Any words Douxie had thought to say before were caught in his throat. Here he had thought he could comfort himself, to soothe and smother all his past anxieties, and faltering faith with experience. Experience, however, could not cover up his past and fix all the little things he didn’t like about himself. He wasn’t better than his past self because he knew more than him now. 

“I did doubt you.” Truth was the hardest pill to swallow, “And in a way I even didn’t like you,” the most bitter, “the version of me that was always making mistakes.” And at times was the worst thing you could admit. But once you did things would begin to change and maybe even heal.

Everyone had always doubted him, and even he had doubted himself, but to act this way…Made him want to change. He had already learned the lessons about hard work and not taking short cuts, but now he needed to learn to truly believe in himself. Claire, Jim, and the rest of his friends already did. So why couldn’t he start to believe in himself and his potential. Past and future. He always had it even if he couldn’t see it at times. 

“You’re right.” He admits, “It’s not fair to you. Me?…Us?” Douxie questions for a second before he lets out a chuckle, and hears one from his past self as well. It was progress.

“Good to see I’m not the only one who finds it a bit baffling.” Chimed in his past, and for the first time Douxie saw himself smile.

“You may not end up like me, or maybe you will, and you’ll l end up on this same path I’m on. Following Merlin for nine-hundred years may be worth it or it may not be to you in the end, but all I can say with certainty is that I hope you can grow and experience some of the things I have. I hope you do meet Claire, and Jim, even Steve and the others. Because without them I might not have started to think differently. I…I do still have my doubts. That I might screw everything up like I have before. That I’m not right or ready for what lies in store for me. Yet my friends believe in me and that gives me hope. I’ve started to hope. I hope that I can do it, and I’ve begun to believe it. Someday, I hope you do too. I know we haven’t been the best of listeners in the past, but I hope you believe me when I say this.” Douxie says placing a hand on his past self’s shoulder, and with that he smiled back at his future.

“I actually need some help looking through these tomes if you wanted to join me.” Douxie offered.

“Of course! I think I might of spotted something earlier that might help actually!” Hisirdoux eagerly rushed to one of the shelves with excitement at the prospect of helping, but most of all the trust given to him.

Douxie stared at his past self who worked his way through a stack of tomes. His past was apart of him. He may have been embarrassed by himself, he might have felt shame for his mistakes, and he might disliked himself at one point, but he never should have looked down upon himself with disdain. His past was a progression of what he was until that point. The culmination of his experiences and growth. He did not know better then and that was it. 

The man he was today was the culmination of all his new experiences, and what he did not know today he would learn some day. He would grow and learn as he had this night.

Tonight he would no longer look to his past with disdain.

**Author's Note:**

> **** Comments, questions, and reactions are 100% welcomed and greatly appreciated! Tell me what you liked, questions you have, anything! Give this work a kudos if you liked it. Comments and kudos help me to create more work and figure out what I should work on.****


End file.
